


Worth The Cost

by Huggle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester Use Their Words, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6677029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean thinks Sam is just biding his time until something better comes along.</p><p>Sam thinks this is the only way he'll get to stay.</p><p>They are both clearly idiots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth The Cost

It was his own fault. He was the one who walked – no, ran away to start a new life because the one he had was clearly so Goddamn awful. And if the life was awful then what did that say about the people he shared it with? The father and brother who protected him? Dean, especially. Dean, who’d sacrificed so much to look after him growing up.

Maybe he’d sabotaged himself, but when he flunked law school it seemed like he had only one place to go. Home.

Dad had gone by that point, left Dean running the show while he went off on some top secret demon hunt. Dean seemed glad to see him – didn’t hug him, but then that was too ‘girly’ for Dean. If Dean ever hugged him, Sam would have thought something was really wrong. But it felt like there was a cold zone between them. Sometimes he would say something or do something and Dean would just stare like Sam was some stranger who’d just appeared out of nowhere in the car or the motel or standing next to him in the street.

He didn’t know how it happened, but despite the occasional awkwardness of him being back, they started sleeping together soon after. Dean was lonely, Sam figured. The Winchesters had gone from being four to three to two to one. He didn’t expect Dean to have issues with their father over leaving – it wasn’t ‘leaving’ like that – but he, Sam? He’d abandoned the family. Dean was probably just relieved to have him back, and Sam was grateful for that.

He’d expected Dean to kick him to the kerb, instead of letting him slink back to the family he’d thrown aside. When their dad finally returned, Sam was expecting to be picked up by the scruff of his neck and tossed out. He hoped Dean being like this meant that when John finally did come back, Dean would at least try to persuade their father not to leave Sam behind when they moved on this time.

So when Dean leaned down to kiss him, Sam kissed him back as hard and as desperately as he could, hoping that he was more than just a nightly diversion, someone warm to hold on to until something better came along. Hoping that maybe Dean felt about this the way Sam did himself.

But Dean made love the way he lived. He didn’t hold anything back, and he could be wild. Sam was no china doll, but when Dean pushed him into hard and fast sometimes grabbing at Sam’s shoulder like it was a hand hold, he had to bite down on the pillow or sometimes his own arm to keep the pain in. Sometimes Dean would take him on his back, and then Sam had to find some other way of hiding it. 

Once Dean noticed tears that Sam hadn’t been able to keep in, and questioned it. Sam had lied smoothly – he’d got that lawyerly skill down no problem – and told him he was happy. Glad to be back, that Dean loved him,, that he was home.

He wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse that Dean didn’t seem to correct him.

But if this was what it took to be able to stay, it was a fair price for being such a screw up in the first place.

~~

Dean didn’t know what to do with himself at first when Sam returned. It was so out of the blue, having his brother back with him. Staying in motel rooms, arguing over the TV, slaying demons and hunting things together again.

But it wasn’t the same. Sam had changed, and sometimes Dean found himself wondering if maybe Sam wasn’t staying. He knew Sam had flunked his classes. It had taken getting him drunk to find that out, but he wasn’t going to make his brother feel bad about it. Sam had at least tried, and so maybe he wasn’t cut out for wearing a suit and spending his days arguing with other suits in a courtroom. Dean had no doubt Sam was meant for better things that a life on the road chasing down things most people didn’t even believe in.

Sam just had to find the right thing and the right way to go at it, and he’d be fine.

But the thought that Sam was just ...killing time here, while he worked things out. That hurt. The more time Dean spent around Sam, the more the thought of Sam leaving again hurt like metal splinters digging in all over. It had been bad enough the first time, having to put a brave face on it. Encourage Sam to go, because he knew it was what his little brother needed. Their dad’s anger over it just made it harder. Supporting Sam had made it seem to John that Dean was picking a side. Really it had been nothing like that, but things had been tense between them both for a while.

Now Sam was back, and Dean knew he would likely be caught in the middle again. Then Sam would up and leave, and once again Dean would be the one left out in the cold.

It was after the third time he woke up from dreaming of Sam getting him off that Dean realised if he acted on his feelings, Sam might stay. It wouldn’t be a hardship. Before Sam left for Stanford, Dean had been going to sound him out. See if maybe Sam felt the way. But when Sam had shown him the enrolment papers, pleaded with Dean to back him up.... What else could he have done? Sam had mustered every ounce of courage he had to go through with it, Dean wasn’t going to do anything to hold him back.

But now he was considering it. He didn’t think he could handle Sam going again. He’d missed him more than he’d thought possible. He couldn’t go through it all again. And he wasn’t lying. He wanted Sam so bad that there were nights he couldn’t sleep in the same room as him. 

Then it had happened. Somehow. Dean almost couldn’t believe it, even when he kissed Sam and got to touch him and make him breathe hard and fast. The time that Sam cried, and told Dean it was because he was happy, that he loved Dean.... One Winchester in tears at a time was enough, but his stomach did a crazy flip at hearing those words.

All the same, something didn’t ring true, and he started to wonder if maybe Sam was just keeping him sweet long enough to get back on his feet before he took off again.

~~

When Dean kissed him, Sam couldn’t hold back a sigh. He winced when Dean pulled back, a hurt look on his face. 

“Dean,” Sam said.

“No, it’s ok, I get it. Look, Sam...if you’re going to go again, you need to be straight with me.”

Sam closed his eyes. So much for Dean feeling like he did. “I didn’t come back here to up and leave, Dean. But I understand if that’s what you want. I know I made the mistake of going in the first place.” He turned away, thinking maybe he could stay at Ellen and Jo’s for a while. Until he figured out what to do next.

Dean’s hand closed on his arm. “I never said that was what I wanted. Shit, Sam. I don’t. I want you to stay. But you...you can do so much better than this. Than me.”

Sam spun around. “You think that? Dean, you’re my brother. You’ll always be the best there is. I screwed up leaving like I did. I didn’t think you’d want me back, and then when we started...I figured you’d let me stay if....”

Dean paled. “You’ve been letting me do that? Because you thought it was the only way I’d let you stay!”

Sam felt his throat tighten. He caught Dean’s wrists, hanging on when his brother tried to shrug him off. “No. Dean, no. I wanted it, I want you. But I didn’t think you felt the same, and if that was the only way it could happen...if that was all I could get, I was going to take it.”

Dean groaned, and tugged his wrists free. He cupped a hand at the back of Sam’s neck, tugged him forward until their foreheads touched. “You’re an idiot. I’m an idiot. Okay...cards on the table time. I don’t want you to leave again. I want you to stay here but if you feel the need to go back to college, you have to promise to tell me. We’ll sort something out. I’ll come back on weekends, or we can do a distance course or something.”

Sam threw his arms around his brother, surprised when Dean hugged him back. “I don’t want to leave again either. But dad....”

Dean squeezed him tight. “Let me worry about dad. No one’s kicking you out, Sammy. Don’t you worry about that.”


End file.
